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A Contract for New Citizens

By

Joel Kotkin

Updated Jan. 14, 1997 12:08 a.m. ET

All too often the current debate over immigration has dissolved into a battle of dueling accountants, each trying to prove that newcomers add or subtract from our economic well-being. In "Assimilation, American Style" (BasicBooks, 259 pages, $26), Peter Salins focuses on a more pressing issue -- how to integrate recent immigrants into American society.

For the most part Mr. Salins -- drawing on historical and journalistic sources -- makes a compelling case that for immigration to succeed it must be firmly assimilationist....